Physicians and Surgeons that preside at a dissection, how the legal habitude of viewing shocking scenes hardens the human mind, and renders it unfeeling. The president maintains the dignity of insensibility over an executed corpse, and considers it but as the object of a lecture. In the print of the Sleeping Judges, this habitual indifference only excites our laughter. It is to Hogarth's honour that in so many scenes of satire or ridicule, it is obvious that ill-nature did not guide his pencil. His end is always reformation, and his reproofs general. It is seldom that his figures do not express the character he intended to give them. When they wanted an illustration that colours could not bestow, collateral circumstances, full of wit, supply notes. The nobleman in Marriage A-la-mode has a great air-the coronet on his crutches, and his pedigree issuing out of the bowels of William the Conqueror, add his character. In the breakfast the old steward reflects for the spectator. Sometimes a short label is an epigram, and is never introduced without improving the subject. Unfortunately some circumstances, that were temporary, will be lost to posterity, the fate of all comic authors; and if ever an author wanted a commentary that none of his beauties might be lost, it is Hogarth-not from being obscure, (for he never was that but in two or three of his first prints, where transient national follies, as Lotteries, Freemasonry, and the South-Sea were his topics) but for the use of foreigners, and from a multiplicity of little incidents, not essential to, but always heightening the principal action. Such is the spider's web extended over the poor's box in a parish-church; the blunders in architecture in the nobleman's seat seen through the window, in the first print of Marriage A-la-mode; and a thousand in the Strollers dressing in a barn, which for wit and imagination, without any other end, I think the best of all his works; as for useful and deep satire, that on the Methodists is the most sublime. The scenes of Bedlam and the Gaming house, are inimitable representations of our serious follies or unavoidable woes; and the concern shown by the Lord-Mayor when the companion of his childhood is brought before him as a criminal, is a touching picture, and big with humane admonition and reflection. : Another instance of this author's genius is his not condescending to explain his moral lessons by the trite poverty of allegory. If he had an emblematic thought, he expressed it with wit, rather than by a symbol. Such is that of the whore setting fire to the world in the Rake's Progress. Once indeed he descended to use an allegoric personage, and was not happy in it in one of his Election prints Britannia's chariot breaks down, while the coachman and footman are playing at cards on the box. Sometimes too, to please his vulgar customers, he stooped to low images and national satire, as in the two prints of France and England, and that of the Gate of Calais. The last indeed has great merit, though the caricatura is carried to excess. In all these the painter's purpose was to make his countrymen observe the ease and affluence of a free government, opposed to the wants and woes of slaves. In Beer-Street the English butcher tossing a Frenchman in the air with one hand, is absolutely hyperbole; and what is worse, was an afterthought, not being in the first edition.* The Gin-alley is much superior, horridly fine, but disgusting. * [Mr. Walpole is mistaken. The butcher is a blacksmith. In His Bartholomew-fair* is full of humour; the March to Finchley, of nature: the Enraged Musician tends to farce. The Four Parts of the Day, except the last, are inferior to few of his works. The Sleeping Congregation, the Lecture on the Vacuum, the Laughing Audience, the Consultation of Physicians as a coat of arms, and the Cockpit, are perfect in their several kinds. The prints of Industry and Idleness have more merit in the intention than execution. It may appear singular, that of an author whom I call comic, and who is so celebrated for his humour, I should speak in general in so serious a style; but it would be suppressing the merits of his heart to consider him only as a promoter of laughter. I think I have shown that his views were more generous and extensive. Mirth coloured his pictures, but benevolence designed them. He smiled like Socrates, that men might not be offended at his lectures, and might learn to laugh at their own follies. When his topics were harmless, all his touches were marked with pleasantry and fun. He never laughed like Rabelais at nonsense that he imposed for wit; but like Swift combined incidents that divert one from their unexpected encounter, and illustrate the tale he means to tell. Such are the hens roosting on the upright waves in the scene of the Strollers, and the devils drinking porter on the altar. The manners or costume are more than observed in every one of his works. The very furniture of his rooms describes the characters of the persons to whom they belong; a lesson that might be of use to comic authors. It was reserved to Hogarth to write a scene of furniture. The rake's levee-room, the nobleman's dining the first state of the plate the blacksmith is lifting a Frenchman; in the second state the Frenchman is properly discarded. N.] * [Southwark Fair. N.] room, the apartments of the husband and wife in Marriage A-la-mode, the alderman's parlour, the poet's bedchamber, and many others, are the history of the manners of the age. Before his apprenticeship was expired, he felt the impulse of genius, and felt it directed him to painting, though little apprized at that time of the mode nature had intended he should pursue. His apprenticeship was no sooner expired, than he entered into the Academy in St. Martin's-lane, and studied drawing from the life, in which he never attained to great excellence. It was character, the passions, the soul, that his genius was given him to copy. His Midnight Modern Conversation was the first work that showed his command of character: but it was the Harlot's Progress that established his fame. The pictures were scarce finished and no sooner exhibited to the public, and the subscription opened, than above twelve hundred names were entered on his book. The familiarity of the subject, and the propriety of the execution, made it tasted by all ranks of people. Every engraver set himself to copy it, and thousands of imitations were dispersed all over the kingdom. It was made into a pantomime, and performed on the stage. The Rake's Progress, perhaps superior, had not so much success, from want of novelty; nor indeed is the print of the Arrest equal in merit to the others. The curtain was now drawn aside, and his genius stood displayed in its full lustre. From time to time he continued to give those works that should be immortal, if the nature of his art will allow it. Even the receipts for his subscriptions had wit in them. Many of his plates he engraved himself, and often expunged faces etched by his assistants when they had not done justice to his ideas. II. BY THE REV. WILLIAM GILPIN, M.A. The works of Hogarth abound in true humour; and satire, which is generally well directed. They are admirable moral lessons, and afford a fund of entertainment suited to every taste: a circumstance which shews them to be just copies of nature. We may consider them too as valuable repositories of the manners, customs, and dresses of the present age. What amusement would a collection of this kind afford, drawn from every period of the history of Britain? How far the works of Hogarth will bear a critical examination, may be the subject of a little more enquiry. In design Hogarth was seldom at a loss: his invention was fertile, and his judgment accurate. An improper incident is rarely introduced; a proper one rarely omitted. No one could tell a story better; or make it, in all its circumstances, more intelligible. His genius, however, it must be owned, was suited only to low or familiar subjects. It never soared above common life: to subjects naturally sublime, or which from antiquity, or other accidents, borrowed dignity, he could not rise. In composition we see little in him to admire. In many of his prints, the deficiency is so great as plainly to imply a want of all principle; which makes us ready to believe, that when we do meet with a beautiful group, it is the effect of chance. In one of his minor works, the "Idle Apprentice," we seldom see a crowd more beautifully managed than in the last print. If the sheriff's officers had not been placed in a line, and had been brought a little lower in the picture, so as to have formed a pyramid with the cart, the composition had been unexceptionable; and yet the first print of |